Gaye’s writing is intelligent, funny, and sharp. These essays are filled with wry observations written in accessible and smart prose. Contemporary thinkers like Gaye have their finger on the pulse of current feminist ideas and how they intersect with race, literature, popular culture, and myriad other dynamics. It’s a pleasure to read.

Recommended by Katie Hae Leo – Associate Editor

Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman (1855)

First, “Song of Myself” is the undisputed gateway to the 20th C American lyric, but more importantly, Whitman articulates a spiritual philosophy that is anti-institutional and a social vision that calls for the communal celebration of equality (and homosexual expressions of love, if one is so inclined). If only the poets (of this variety) had replaced the priests and politicians like he predicted, maybe America would be a better place.

Recommended by Rosemarie Dombrowski – Editor

Getting Even
Woody Allen (1855)

Woody Allen’s prose is often, and I think unfairly, overlooked. This is one of those go-to books for when I need a really good laugh–I’m talking the snorting, clutching your sides, gasping for breath variety. In my opinion, this collection and two others (Without Feathers and Side Effects) are argument enough for Allen’s inclusion in the pantheon of Great American Humorists such as James Thurber and S.J. Perelman.